6 Sessions You Can’t Miss at IPI 2015

IPI is coming up at the end of the month so we went through the conference schedule and hand-picked these 6 sessions to attend. If you like our articles you’ll definitely enjoy these presentations because they’re well-aligned with our interests. We hope to see you there!

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1. Big Data: What is it and Why it Matters

Peter Lange, Executive Director, Texas A&M University – College Station

Description: With the emergence of integrated parking systems, electronic payments, and cloud-based management systems, parking and transportation data is becoming more accessible to owners and operators. This presentation will focus on defining BigData, where to obtain the data, and how to determine the value of the information. It will introduce applicable uses of Big Data in the parking and transportation sector as well as important factors when seeking to apply it.

Why you can’t miss it: Big Data is the future of the parking industry. It should inform all your business decisions from pricing to personnel. Attend this session to stay at the forefront of how Big Data is used in parking.

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2. Making Parking a Real Part of Intelligent Transportation

Description: License plate recognition (LPR) has improved over the years and is offered as a solution for many parking management issues. This presentation will provide a review of the applications and limitations of LPR. A review of potential issues and what to expect in terms of accuracy will be provided based on our analysis of real-world data to provide confidence and understanding with LPR systems.

Why you can’t miss it: This session presents a unique opportunity to learn about the benefits and shortcomings of LPR from a third party. Instead of reading what individual companies have to say about their products, treat this session as a buyer’s guide.

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3. Pricing Analytics for Parking Operators

Description: Sales for both products and services on the Internet are on the rise globally. Online purchases accounted for 8 percent of total retail sales in 2012 and are projected to increase to 10 percent or $370 billion by 2017. More customers book online and pre-reserve their parking spaces. We will discuss price optimization for the Internet, maximizing pricing by channel, and the benefits and pitfalls of implementing dynamic pricing.

Why you can’t miss it: This session describes what we think is the greatest challenge to mastering online sales: pricing. Your rates should be unique for every channel and this presentation will teach you how to set those rates.

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Presenter: Soumya Dey, Director of Research & Technology, District Department of Transportation

Description: This presentation will discuss strategies for metered on-street parking that enable a jurisdiction to get to desired outcomes using fewer assets at a lower cost. It will be based on lessons learned from the Chinatown dynamic pricing pilot in Washington, DC. Real-time occupancy detection is often the “missing piece” as municipalities start to migrate up the “smart parking” spectrum… The state-of-the-practice in the industry for occupancy detection has been using assets (such as sensors and cameras) for every parking space (100% coverage). However, given the current price points, this approach is not sustainable… The cost, customer satisfaction, revenue and operational implications of asset light solutions will be discussed. The presentation will enable the audience to use data from different parts of the parking eco-system to get to cost-effective and sustainable “smart parking” solutions.

Why you can’t miss it: This session will teach you techniques for predicting demand and occupancy without relying too heavily on expensive equipment like sensors and cameras. While the session is bent toward on-street parking, the same lessons can be applied to off-street facilities.

6. Put Some Clothes On! The Internet of Everything is at the Door

Description: The Internet of Everything is here and we need to be prepared to embrace its effect on the world of parking and transportation. We now have an enormous amount of performance and predictive data at our fingertips, and the data available is growing exponentially. We can reduce costs, increase efficiencies, and expand the capacity of existing resources in ways that were never possible just five years ago, and the future potential is nearly limitless.

Why you can’t miss it: The description is right. In order to make the most of the data and technology available to us in the parking industry, we need to embrace the Internet of Everything. If you don’t know what that is yet, you should definitely be attending this session.

ParkingExec and SpotHero will be at IPI! Look out for our live tweets and come visit our booth in the expo hall.

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